And, I've reached 10

I recently spent a week in Washington DC at the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention conference. The conference was incredibly intense hearing from keynote speakers Elizabeth Smart, Dr. Jill Biden, Attorney General Eric Holder, and several others. I was hoping for daily reprieves from the conference where I could go into the city and spend some time in my old stomping grounds. Before I left, I had visions of running through Rock Creek Park, meandering around Foggy Bottom/GWU, eating my way around Dupont Circle and of course catching up with friends and family. However, the conference location was so isolated from the city it was next to impossible to get to the city. It was close, but the transportation situation was ridiculous. I now know how the prisoners of Alcatraz felt being able to see the glistening lights of San Francisco, but only being able to reach it by risking their life in shark infested waters with deadly swift currents. The Green Line on the Metro at night is a close comparison and I wasn’t about to risk it. So, I mostly stayed in the convention center.

It wasn’t all that bad. On Thursday night my cousin Aida and her husband Cesar picked me up at Union Station and took me to a lovely dinner at Central where we dined on frog’s legs, a Spanish prosciutto sample tray and mussels steamed in chorizo and wine sauce. On Friday, I got done early and rode the metro to Foggy Bottom and then walked up Wisconsin Avenue to my old row house in Georgetown. I met up with Ketchikan friends Geri and Chandra and had dinner at one of my favorite restaurants- Famous Luigi’s where I had spent my birthday dinner with my parents 10 years and 1 day ago.

Needless to say, I didn’t get any running in while in DC. Well, I did try. On the first morning, I attempted to run on the treadmill in the hotel’s gym, but I got overheated after a mile and nearly passed out. Upon return to my room at 6:30 AM, I discovered my room key quit working and I was locked out. After several trips in sweaty workout clothes between my room and the front desk separated by a mile (with security in tow), I got pissed and gave up on the whole idea- for the rest of the week. Instead choosing to dine on cheap take out and expensive beer in my room for the remainder of most nights.

A week later when I got home, my running didn’t improve. Aurelia got really sick and my scheduled runs just didn’t happen. Needless to say, I was dreading my 9 miles I had to run on Saturday. I love running, but when I’ve had a two-week break, nine miles can be intimidating.

After a late night of wine and good conversation with friends, I woke up on Saturday dreading the run even more. But, I knew it had to be done, and I also knew I’d be happy as soon as my feet touched the road. I set my iPod and hit the pavement. The run was shaky at first. Mostly because I chugged a giant glass of grapefruit juice right before I headed out the door, which has now gone down in my "Frances' Rules of Running Handbook" as a big "no-no." Somewhere between mile 3 and 4, a car approached me on the highway, slowed down and pulled up next to me. It was my doctor, Sharon Fisher. She was the person who discovered my cancer by noticing a lump on my neck while sitting across the room from me. She called for tests for two months not giving up until they found out what was wrong with me.

Sharon rolled down her window and started clapping and cheering filling her car with such a cheer section I could have sworn there was a cheerleading squad in the back seat. I smiled and waved and kept running. As she drove away I was filled with so much happiness that I wanted to jump up and down and dance. Instead I ran faster, and faster. Then I started thinking about the impact Sharon’s had on my life the past two years, and how she has been such a cheerleader for me in so many ways. My eyes started to fill with tears and I suddenly found it hard to breath. My eyes were blurry making it hard to see where I was going and my lungs were heavy. I had to slow down and resume my snail pace and get my emotions in check.

Then, it happened. There have always been two strange omen-like happenings that have always occurred in my life. The first is thinking I’ve seen a friend in a random public setting like a grocery store, approaching that “friend” to say hello and then getting closer and realizing that the person I thought was my friend, is a complete stranger. Seconds later, I’ll go down a different aisle or turn a corner and there really is the friend I thought I had just seen moments earlier. It happens so much to me; it’s freaky. The other strange happening has to do with music. I sometimes feel like I have a personal deejay following me around playing the soundtrack to the movie of my life. After my first chemo session in Seattle, I wandered around downtown high as a kite until I found a hair salon and went in asking them to cut 12 inches off my hair and dye it purple. As the lady started to make the first cut the Indigo Girls song “Secure Yourself” came on the radio. The first lyrics are, “Secure yourself to heaven, hold on tight the night has come, fasten up your earthly burdens, you have just begun.” I mean seriously? I just had my first chemo session with 11 more to go and this song started playing?

Right after I saw Sharon and was attempting to recover, a song came on my iPod that I hadn’t heard for awhile. I admit, it’s cheese ball pop music, but it’s the song “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield. I first heard it last July when I got done with my radiation and it really spoke to me. I knew that I had been given a second chance at my life and I couldn’t waste it on uncertainty or being unhappy. Change was only going to happen if I made it happen. The song has a chorus that says, “Feel the rain on your skin, no one else can feel it for you, only you can let it in….” I kid you not, on my run when that chorus kicked in, the sky turned black and a downpour hit me hard. I know, a downpour in Juneau cannot be linked to an omen or weird sign since it happens all the time, but I will say when that rain hit my skin and I looked up at the sky with a huge smile on my face, at that moment, I decided to run 10 miles instead of 9. There might have even been some hands thrown up happily towards the sky as I leapt forward in giant strides. Who knows, there was no one there to see it except me.